The present invention relates to a mounting bracket and is concerned particularly, although not exclusively with, a mounting bracket for use within an enclosure for housing cabling and associated equipment.
A vast amount of cabling is used in the telecommunication and electronics industry. Existing cabinets that are used to house the junctions of cabling and associated equipment are either floor standing or wall mounted. Easy access to the cabling is important and existing cabinets include panels. Many existing cabinets comprise a frame structure and a plurality of panels mounted thereon. The frame structure includes support members formed by presswork. The members are formed from sheet metal and holes and locating slots are punched through walls of the members. The walls of the members are substantially perpendicular to each other and form common U-shaped channel sections and L-shaped sections.
The support members are often used to support cables using cable ties and cable guides.
Depending upon where on the frame structure the cable guides are to be mounted, different fixings are generally provided for different configurations of cable guide.
According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a mounting bracket for a fixture element formed with channel means comprising two opposed channel formations, said mounting bracket comprising a bracket body, a bracket spacer fixedly connected to the bracket body and a flange formation fixedly connected to the bracket spacer, whereby said flange formation is held spaced from said bracket body, said flange formation comprising flange portions which together define a substantially rectangular outline, disregarding any spaces between the flange portions, said flange portions lying substantially in a common plane and being directed generally outwardly of the centre of said rectangular outline, whereby in use said flange formation is receivable by said channel means selectively in a first orientation of said fixture element and in a second orientation of said fixture element, said first orientation and said second orientation being substantially perpendicular to each other.
Preferably, the flange formation comprises two spaced-apart, parallel elongate flange regions.
Each flange region is preferably held spaced from the bracket body by a respective web portion of the bracket that extends in a direction away from the bracket body.
The respective lengths of the elongate flange regions are preferably greater than the corresponding lengths of the web portions so as to define retaining lugs at the opposite ends of the elongate flange regions, the retaining lugs being adapted to co-operate with the channel means when the fixture element is assembled to the bracket in the orientation in which the flange regions extend transversely of the channel means.
The mounting bracket preferably comprises attachment means.
The invention also comprises the combination of a fixture element and a mounting bracket in accordance with the first aspect of the invention.
The fixture element is preferably a cable guide number.